Monday, May 19, 2008

Red Sox v. Royals, 7:05 pm. It was a fantastic weekend at Fenway Park (trust me, I was there for 2 of the 3 games), and the Red Sox are looking to continue their winning ways tonight. The suddenly hot Jon Lester (2-2, 3.95) will face off against Kansas City rookie Luke Hochevar (3-2, 3.94).These pitchers are pretty evenly matched, so this will either be a really great game or a total slugfest. Hochevar is coming off a 6-inning shutout performance against the Tigers, but it was against the Tigers so basically he gave up 3 runs on 7 hits in real people baseball. Hot-hitting Royals OF Jose Guillen was last week’s AL Player of the week, but hopefully Lester’s 86-MPH fastballtendency to throw wild pitches competent left-handed pitching will shut him down tonight. Kansas City is just a game under .500 and tied with the Twins for 3rd in the AL Central; I like these kids a lot and would love to see them do well but failing to beat a mediocre team at home is just not something I can see myself forgiving the Sox for. Also, David DeJesus would like you to know that it’s pronounced deh-HAY-soos.

More exciting Sox news today, incidentally, as Terry Francona has announced that the pitchers for games 2 and 3 in this series will be Justin Masterson and Bartolo Colon. Sweet! According to the MLB.com article, this decision is pending the weather being nice: according to Francona, “[Masterson and Colon] understand that this is in all likelihood what's going to happen, but if weather gets in the way or something happens, that can change.” Not sure what on earth that means. Perhaps Masterson hasn’t been waterproofed yet? Scotch-Gard(TM) that shit, yo!

Frivolous prop bet of the night: Trey Hillman forgets that he no longer coaches in Japan; is tossed from the game for complaining that the strike zone is too small and the ball too large; drowns sorrows in sake and geishas.

Serious prediction of the night: After getting a breather yesterday, Okajima throws two shutout innings tonight. (Fun fact: Okajima's former team, the Nippon Ham Fighters, is the same team Hillman used to manage.)

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